Boss RC-30 Loop Station Pedal Review

Boss has been a major player in the looping-
pedal game for years. The company
sponsors the annual Loop Station World
Championship, and their flagship RC-50 is
regarded as one of the Cadillacs of looping
pedals. And the new RC-300 ranks among
the most formidable looping machines ever
made. Boss has also consistently made more
accessibly priced and compact loopers, and
the new twin-pedal RC-30, which replaces
the popular RC-20XL, adds new functionality
and greater recording capability—up
to 3 hours and 99 phrases—that tops the
old RC-20XL’s 16 minutes and 11 phrases
by a significant margin.

Space Base
As you might expect, given the number of
features on the RC-30, the control panel is
fairly packed. On the left, you’ll find the
Loop FX selector section, with Type and
On/Off buttons and a list of five effects
with Status indicator lights. To the right
are the unit’s Select buttons, Status indicator
lights, and faders for tracks 1 and
2. Furthest right is the Memory section,
which includes an LED screen, buttons
for scrolling (up and down) and for Write
and Delete. Two Level knobs, Mic and
Rhythm (with three corresponding buttons
labeled Type, On/Off, and Tap Tempo),
round out the control panel.

The RC-30’s two footswitches are located
on the bottom portion of the pedal.
Its input and output jacks are located on
the rear panel, and they consist of an XLR
input with an on/off switch for phantom
power, an aux input, stereo inputs and
outputs, an external footswitch jack, a
USB input, and a DC input. The RC-30
can also be powered with the six included
9V batteries.

Effects to Boot
The RC-30 has five built-in effects—Bend
Down, Step Phaser, Sweep Filter, Tempo
Delay, and Lo-Fi. These effects sound
pretty cool (I particularly liked the Step
Phaser) and the time-based effects automatically
sync up to the tempo, which is
a big plus. In general, though, the effects
are pretty bare bones and you can’t control
any of the effect parameters. In one situation,
the delay level was kind of high for
my taste and a minor tweak would have
made it perfect, but I was stuck with it. It’s
still nice to have built-in effects though,
especially if your sound isn’t heavily reliant
on them and you just want an occasional
smattering for color.

Keep it in Time
A tricky thing with
looping can be getting
your loops to start and
stop exactly in time.
Needless to say, doing
so is vital, because
unless you’re working
in a more experimental,
improvised context, an
ill-timed loop can derail
a whole tune. Normal
recording mode, where
you manually press the
pedal to start and stop a
loop section, is the unit’s
default setting. But the
RC-30 also offers a few
recording modes that are nearly foolproof
ways to get in time. Auto recording starts
recording when the RC-30 hears you playing,
and Count-in recording (which I found
the easiest to use) will start recording after a
one-measure count in. The RC-30 also provides
10 simple built-in rhythms you can
use as timing guides.

Having two separate tracks is a neat feature,
though the tracks are not as independent
as you might expect, as they both have
to be the same length. You can’t loop, say,
a four-measure rhythm guitar phrase, and
record an endless solo over it. You’d have
to record the rhythm part consecutively as
many times as you’ll need for the soloing
track. Still, the potential for thick, texture-rich
tracks is remarkable once you master
this function.

The Verdict
Unless you’re a hardcore looper who bases
a whole performance on loops, the RC-30
likely has what you need to explore the
many textures and compositional possibilities
looping brings to the table. The loops
sound great, there’s no noise or signal loss
to speak of, the effects (if limited) can add
extra color, and getting in sync is a breeze.
Boss’ extensive experience with looping
is also apparent in the RC-30’s intuitive
interface and the way it tackles some of the
most common looping challenges. And if
you plan to investigate looping as a way of
expanding your sonic repertoire, you can’t
go wrong with this very capable unit.

Buy if...
you’re looking for a whole lot of loopage for the buck.Skip if...
you need MIDI for live looping.Rating...

New York City native Joe Charupakorn is a guitarist, author, and editor. He has interviewed the world’s biggest guitar icons including Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Yngwie Malmsteen, Carlos Santana, Neal Schon, and Dave Davies, among many others, for Premier Guitar. Additionally, he has written over 20 instructional books for Hal Leonard Corporation. His books are available worldwide and have been translated into many languages. Visit him on the web at joecharupakorn.com.

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